[oscargrouch]

I used to think like you too.. but after Jobs/Apple launched the iPhone the trend for jitted languages, as popularized by Java in the nineties is going down..

Because of the phones and batteries, AOT languages are more valued and even ordinary jitted languages are getting a AOT compiler.. ART for Java and even .Net

So Dart would need to have a AOT compiler first to make it more appealing to mobile phones.. also i think a lot of apps would not like to be distributed in source code form..

So langs like Go now are on the rise.. its funny how technology trends change over the decades... not while ago it was all about dinamic languages..

[stcredzero]

It has always been about language features, abstraction power, and maximized interactivity. Exactly how one achieves these isn't the main point.

[oscargrouch]

Its all about influential people in tech, managing popular platforms deciding what technology to use for their platforms..

Eg. Basic, Javascript, Objetive-C

As i dont think people actually conciously choose to write in those languages because of its features.. thats why we have so many people grumpy about those technologies..

Languages that we choose because of better features, pretty often loose in popularity and adoption..

Sometimes those languages have some heroic comunity efforts and a vibrant community that can make it stand.. but this is pretty rare.. Python, Ruby(because of Rails)

It has almost the same mechanics of the fashion industry.. Some influential people decide what we gonna wear on the next 5 years..

We can use our "hobby language" of choice, because its our own decision.. but in the end of the day.. we have to mantain and work in code on those languages missing the "features, abstraction power and maximized interactivity" we love so much

[stcredzero]

As i dont think people actually conciously choose to write in those languages because of its features

Incorrect, or at least badly lacking historical context and perspective.

Basic: interactive. (Primitive REPL.)

Javascript: it was there. If it wasn't there, everywhere but influential people just wrote about it then it would have languished. Also, it is interactive.

Objective-C: has a lot of very good OO which was heavily influenced by Smalltalk. It is precisely the OO excellence that it was known for and which engendered fierce love for it in certain circles.

Remember also that these languages have been around for a long time, on hardware far less powerful than what we have today or even had a decade ago. The youngest of these languages is Javascript by far, and it is almost 20 tears old! For their day, they were advanced with respect to the programming mainstream by at least one measure. (In the Apple II days, BASIC was there, and it was interactive, and that was enough.)

I'm not saying these were the best available. But there is more to it than just fashion and influence/hype. (Otherwise we'd all just be using Java in the browser and for app servers.)

Also: Ruby was a hobby language once upon a time.